In the summer of 324, Constantine besieged the city of Roman Byzantion to capture Licinius after the Battle of Adrianople (2). During the two-month long siege, the emperor stayed in a military camp built on the second hill of the promontory, outside the main land gate built by Septimus Severus in the second century AD. At the time when the city was falling, Licinius escaped to the opposite shores of the Bosporus to Chrysopolis (üsküdar). In the battle of Chrysopolis on September 18, 324, Licinius was defeated and lost his imperial titles as well as the East of the Empire (3). Hence, with the elimination of his rival, Constantine became the sole ruler of the Roman Empire. To perpetuate the memory of his naval victory, or what Krautheimer (1983, 42) suggested, to commemorate the unification of the Roman Empire under one ruler, Constantine refounded the city of Byzantion as his own capital. It was renamed after the emperor, Constantinople, and was also called the New or Second Rome as early as 326, probably inspired by the desire to make the new able to stand comparison with the old Rome (4).
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